Partner to expand your capacity and capabilities at lower and more flexible cost

Douglas K. Smith, Quentin Hope, Tim Griggs,
Knight-Lenfest Newsroom Initiative,
September 2017
You must figure out how to collaborate – among yourselves and with others.

Look again at Table Stake #6: Partner to expand your capacity and capabilities at lower and more flexible cost. Geographically bound markets, difficult and challenging economics, highly dynamic shifts in technology and socio-demographic behaviors, the huge range and number of possibilities to test, and limited resources for fundamental innovation – all of these reinforce why your news enterprise must consider partnering as part of your approach to fundamental innovation. The corporate chains in news media have an advantage here. For example, among their criteria for what innovations to pursue, they can (should) require “if this innovation is successful, it is replicable in some to many of our other news enterprises.”

Independently owned news enterprises must figure out how to collaborate – among themselves and with others – toward the same end because no single news enterprise on its own has the time or resources to test all of the innovations that are likely needed to find a path to winning.